Dangerous Propositions: Obama Toughens Up On The "Neglected" Eastern Front

Nothing distinguishes Senator Obama from the other top-tier presidential candidates in the Democratic Party more than his staunch opposition to the Iraq war since 2002. Back then, he affirmed he would have voted against the war authorization in the Senate -the vote that Senator Edwards has since repudiated but Senator Clinton hasn't-, called it "a dumb war," worried about how much would it cost and whether the country would disintegrate along sectarian lines, and abhorred circumventing the authority of the United Nations and acting unilaterally. Back then, his position was held by a minority. Today, the tables have turned, and this instance of foresight and good judgment has boosted his political capital enormously.

However, he's no dove, and he seems determined to prove it. On the war on terror, on Iran's nuclear weapons' program, and even on Iraq, his positions -laid out in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs- are closer to Clinton than to Kucinich. Following a phony debate with Senator Clinton over hypothetical diplomatic meetings with leaders of "rogue" countries, Obama promised to take the war on terror back to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the "true" front, neglected due to the Iraq diversion. He mentioned he would redeploy some of the troops being pulled out of Iraq into Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are experiencing a resurgence and seem, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, stronger than ever since Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001. In addition, faced with evidence of Taliban regrouping in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, Senator Obama said the following: "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qa'eda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

These comments were received with criticism by most pundits and presidential candidates, on both sides of the political spectrum. The exceptions are notable: Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, who again outdid Obama in hawkishness by maintaining that in such a hypothetical, nuclear weapons should not be taken off the table. Despite the pundits' criticism, it is hard to imagine that the general public in the United States would oppose such a move. For all the "invasion fatigue," few expect Americans to react negatively against limited attacks on Al-Qaeda bases, regardless of sovereignty issues or Pakistani protests. After all, did anyone object -or even care- about the United States' intervention in Somalia only a few months ago? Obama's comments appeared on the heels of revelations that military bureaucracy had averted plans to use Special Ops against Al-Qaeda leadership -al-Zawahiri included- in Pakistan in 2005, in a similar fashion to Clinton's frustrated plans to take on Osama Bin Laden in 1998.

The problem is not how would Americans react to such a decision, but how would Pakistanis and the Muslim world in general. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, more troops do not guarantee victory. The Brits doubled up their military engagement in Helmand province and since then the situation has only worsened. For all the talk of rebuilding the country, the only Americans or NATO soldiers that typical Afghans outside Kabul encounter are the ones that eradicate their year-long harvest of poppy crop or fly the planes that wipe out entire families of innocent civilians along with militants. As in the Cold War, containment, rather than rollback or appeasement, is the better policy. Taliban control of the southern provinces will likely ebb and flow, but they cannot take over Kabul like they did in 1996.

But the real issue is Pakistan. Although not treated as such, Pakistan is the key country in the so-called war on terror. It is the second most populous Muslim country and its nuclear arsenal counts with more than 100 warheads. It is a battleground where Islamic radicalism and secular democratic forces fight daily for the heart of the country. In Pakistan, as far as the United States is concerned, less is more. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Islamists were the direct beneficiaries in the following elections, gaining twice as many votes as they previously had and catapulting them into positions of power in the North West Province and Baluchistan. As General Musharraf struggles to handle multiple challenges to his rule, from both secular and religious forces, and Pakistan toys with democracy in moments of uncertainty, it is not difficult to imagine how tough talk of US intervention would strengthen the Islamists and more radical groups over the secular forces expected to group around Benazir Bhutto. It seems like an awful price to pay for a few terrorists on the loose.